Observations of a Serial Expat

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Watching the Hong Kong frost tourists

Ice on Hong Kong mountaintops is not an urban legend. This weekend temperatures in Hong Kong plunged to freezing and real ice was spotted in abundance at Hong Kong’s higher elevations.

Wishing to see such an unusual sight for themselves, ‘frost tourists’ were out in full force on Sunday causing traffic jams on mountain roads and creating a lot of extra work for emergency services.

Rather than brave the elements to see the ice myself, I decided to pull out a telescope and watch the action on Hong Kong’s tallest peak, Tai Mo Shan, from the comfort of my balcony.

I least I think I did.

I also might have fallen asleep under a pile of blankets on my sofa while a bad movie about mountain climbing was on TV. It might have been called The Eiger Sanction (1975) staring Clint Eastwood and George Kennedy.

Anyway, this is a picture of me on my balcony Sunday afternoon with my telescope (Yes, I bear an uncanny resemblance to George Kennedy):

I invited a few friends over to ‘watch the mountain’ and I swear I remember the following conversation:

(Credits: The top photo is a screen shot from The Eiger Sanction. The bottom photo, in its original, un-cropped form, was by Will Cho and was taken on Tai Mo Shan on 24 January. The dialogue has been liberally adapted from The Eiger Sanction.)

Years ago in the Netherlands, we used to get snow, but there were no hills for sledging. Soooooo, we kids would hunt down whichever dad had a tow bar on his car and having cajoled him, hooked up a convoy of sledges. The lucky dad would crawl round the neighbourhood very slowly with up to 20 village kids in tow. No idea if it’s still allowed in 2016! I like the icy Hong Kong death slide hill though. Have you tried it?